EXCLUSIVE: The Next X-Men Film Post ‘X-Men: Apocalypse’

On this week’s Heroic Scoop Drop, I got word from my sources on what the next X-Men film will be post X-Men: Apocalypse – a redo of the Dark Phoenix saga. Due to the events of X-Men: Days of Future Past, the timeline of the movies have been rebooted, meaning that the original X-Men trilogy is no longer set in stone and therefore the filmmakers could retell stories in a different way than it originally went down.

GOTG already showed us cosmic works. Fox has a fantastic stable of cosmic characters. I don’t know why they are so scared of being faithful to the comics, are they not paying attention to the other franchises?

This is why the decision to do First Class as a prequel rather than a full reboot was a decision Fox was doomed to regret. And then, turning every movie into a period story complicated the problem even more. They have no stories left to tell that they haven’t already told and they’ve come to the decision that the X-Men are only good for one story anyway. Their cast is too young and they have no stories left to tell. They can either continue to spin their wheels and hope the declining quality of their X-Men movies does not hasten the pace at which the public loses interest in the genre, or they can take the steps Sony has already taken to ensure continued profitability in the years to come.

This is why I think it’s more likely than anybody currently believes that a deal between Fox and Disney is coming. And that’s ignoring the fact that producers at Fox are even beginning to suggest it’s something they’re interested in. Now that Fox has reached the point of being completely convinced that FF has no meaningful value in their hands, I think they will use that property as a bargaining chip that will lead them to working with Marvel to reboot the X-Men circle within the MCU.

Carl

I just don’t see Fox and Marvel making a deal for X-Men. DoFP and Deadpool were both big successes. I don’t think that their universe is irreconcilable either. They just need to bring everything to Deadpool’s timeline in the next movie and go from there.

I do think that there is a deal to be made for FF going back to Marvel.

breakerbaker

I understand why people think it isn’t going to happen. I’m saying it will probably happen even though I already expect 2016 to be the company’s biggest year for CBMs. It’s not about the present. It’s about the future and the past. Their X-Men universe is the oldest (and most fraught) connected universe in Hollywood. And the problem, as this rumor (if true) illustrates, is that Fox is basically out of ideas that they haven’t tried before. For as many characters as they have the right to use, Gambit is what they are deluding themselves into thinking is the next big think. They’re about to lose Jackman’s Wolverine, which means recasting a character who isn’t meant to really age in a universe where he’s already established to look older than any other character out there. And bringing the current crop of X-Men into the present day would make McAvoy’s Xavier something like 75 or 80 years old. And you’re still left with a studio that doesn’t know what to do with the characters.

I suspect they’re going to watch Spider-Man show up in Civil War and then watch Iron Man show up in a Sony movie, and they’re going to see value in that which is greater than the diminishing returns they’re likely to get out of continuing their weirdly disjointed universe. That doesn’t mean giving up full authority over Deadpool, which is a character who shouldn’t really crossover with any of the true universe anyway. It doesn’t mean losing a major stake in the Mutants. It just means allowing Marvel back into the process and thereby opening the door to possibilities they currently lack of those they have but don’t see.

Carl

Deadpool was wildly successful. No diminishing returns there. They’ve got Deadpool 2, New Mutants, another X-Men is inevitable and X-Force is very likely. There is plenty more they could do and show no sign of slowing down. No deal is happening in the next decade.

Also it wouldn’t work in the MCU unless they reboot the X-Men again and find a way to integrate them into their universe.

breakerbaker

I understand why it sounds ridiculous. And yeah, I think somebody at Fox should be getting paid to see diminishing returns starting as early as Deadpool 2–the first one was wildly successful, but it’s an origin story, which is historically an easier and more evocative story to tell than what comes in a sequel. The mainstream charm of Deadpool may be short lived (it’s at least plausible, but again, Fox would not negotiate on the topic of Deadpool–they’d make him theirs alone).

The real issue is the X-Men, which may be hard to see since you and I probably both think Apocalypse will be a hit. It’s easy to say that another one of those movies is inevitable, but the current rumor indicates that they’re not sure where to go next except where they have already been. And that’s not a problem that goes away the more movies they make. It just gets worse. Plus, Jennifer Lawrence has not signed on to do any more of them and even though she’s suggested that she’s willing to do another, she’s going to need to get paid a lot more than she was before. Then, there’s the question of trying to replace Jackman in this continuity, which has disaster written all over it. And that’s before you even get into the question of how to start telling stories in the present day with actors who look like they’ve aged two weeks since 1962, or the question of how to make an X-Men movie that anybody likes without the hackneyed director who’s made the only ones of those movies that anybody’s liked. As for New Mutants, X-Force, and the plenty more they could do, I’d remind you that this is the studio that has been known for making mediocre CBMs with greater regularity than anybody else for the past decade plus. Maybe they fool themselves into thinking the success of Deadpool, a movie they didn’t want to make about a character they never cared about, can be repeated with the likes of Gambit or an R rated Wolverine or whatever. They should be paying somebody to tell them that’s idiotic.

And yes, they would need to reboot the entire X-Men universe to join the MCU. The point I’m making is that they would need to do that anyway. McAvoy has no business playing somebody in his 60s, which he will have to do if they decide the next movie is in the 1990s. If it’s present day, he’d be in his late 80s. A reboot is inevitable. The question is what stories they would want to tell once it occurs to them that the only way forward is to scrap what they have. They have to already be thinking about this. And you know that Feige and Co. have thought about it and how it lines up pretty well with the moment where they will have just completed the event they’ve been building toward since 2008. Once the Spidey deal proves to be a winner for both companies, Fox is going to test the waters. It might not happen in the end. But there will be talks.

They don’t need J. Law, she isn’t important to the core X-Men team. Wolverine has had plenty of movies and isn’t needed either. They can recast him down the road. I’m not sure how they’ll proceed but I imagine someone will stand out in Apocalypse. Hopefully Cyclops cause he’s supposed to be the leader. Fox just needs to hire on a new director or give X-Men over to Tim Miller. Out of 8 movies only 2 were actually bad.

I agree that Gambit is not the direction to take and it seems they’ve figured that out too. Whatever direction they take with the X-Men, I’m sure it’ll be with Fox until they’ve exhausted all options. Talks with Marvel won’t happen. They don’t need any help right now.

breakerbaker

You misunderstand my point. Sequels often do as good or better money, but it’s historically rare that a sequel to an origin is as strong from a narrative perspective as the origin. And the third in a series (if it happens) is usually trash. The problem is that an origin is a story with an established, classic kind of arc. Sequels don’t get to tell that kind of story, so they tend to lean on the cliche of the mopey hero who doesn’t know if heroing is worth all the trouble (established in Superman 2 and carried through to 90 percent of the superhero movies to follow). Still, my point about the possibility that Deadpool 2 disappoints would be a bit more complicated. There is the added budget and the added pressure. The need to top what came before and keep it refreshing. I’m pretty curious about whether Deadpool is just a kind of CBM palette cleanser, and that its charm will not work in the mainstream on subsequent attempts. Still, as I said, I would fully expect that whatever deal was worked out would exclude Deadpool precisely because they likely see two more highly profitable movies out of that they can make on their own.

I disagree about the number of bad X movies. Out of 8 movies, I think three are okay. I think the rest are different layers of bad to awful. I’ll let you guess which three I’m talking about.

As for the direction they go in, I go back to the point that if you don’t bring back Jennifer Lawrence or Nicholas Hoult, you’re still left with a Xavier and Magneto who look to be in their late 30s when they’re supposed to be 20+ years older than that, and we are talking about a movie set 30 years ago. Bring it into the present day and you have two guys in their 80s. As an aside, I do wonder what they will eventually do with Erik’s origin story. We are getting too far away from the Holocaust for him to be a plausible survivor in 2020 and beyond.

Fundamentally, they’re in a tough spot with that series. I mean, narrative continuity has never been a major concern at Fox, but (again) this post says they’re thinking about returning to a story they did 10 years ago using characters they told us two years ago make it to 2014 safe and sound. That by itself is already going to cause problems in terms of stakes for Apocalypse–given that we know that all of the cast (save Mystique) survives another 30 years.

In the end, of course they can continue to make movies–with the same basic story of every Mutant movie they’ve made since 2000. They can throw out the rules of continuity and bring everybody into the present or kill off characters that show up at the end of DoFP. I suspect that’s not as attractive to them today as it might have been 10 years ago.

ariobimo dewantoro

too much x men movies and i cant deal with it

Carmelo Pappalardo

Fox and Marvel will never reconcile. Marvel will NEVER allow Fox to do another T.V. show with Mutants. Marvel does not have to do anything to get F.F. back. Fox will not make another, and the rights will revert right back to Marvel, shortly. Marvel holds all the rights on video games, action figures, even the comics. They will wait until Fox runs out of story-line, or actor’s to play the role. (Jackman is irreplaceable remember?) Marvel holds all the cards, and it is only a matter of time. This feud goes way back, when Marvel was struggling, and Fox flipped them the bird. We will see a DC/Marvel movie before Fox and Marvel kiss and make-up.

Origami Rose

So they are not going to space for Phoenix?

Alexander Alnaif

They might since Bryan Singer teased a space movie, “Apocalypes’s powers come from another planet far from earth, it will be interesting to see how that ties in.”

vin c

Sophie Turner magically turn into a good actress? I mean, she may have, but I’ve always thought she was one of the standout worst performers on GoT.

Carl

Yeah I certainly never thought she was good on GoT. I really wish they cast someone who was a proven actor like Saoirse Ronan, who was up for the role.

Joseph Chaisson

Nope. The first scene with her in the first trailer showed me she can’t act.

This is too soon. The young X-Men have just met on X:Apocalypse, so doing such an iconic saga right after feels rushed narrative wise.
They should do a smaller movie first, either with Proteus or Mr. Sinister, and them go all out with Phoenix, space and all

Worldmind

Yes! A Dark Phoenix tale could be amazing, if done properly. Go cosmic with it, give us a planet-devouring Phoenix, introduce the Shi’ar. Wipe all memories of that bad X3 movie. Make it so.

razorstar90

SHout out to Fox. After the one two punch of X3 and Origins Fox really turned their X-Man movies around. First Class, Days of Future Past, The Wolverine and Deadpool were all really solid. Good for you Fox.

QTN

I like how you didn’t mention a certain Josh Trank movie.

razorstar90

I only referred to their X-Man films not their entire Marvel library

QTN

Remember when Fox hired Mark Millar as their “consultant” and the FF reboot was going to be part of the same X-Men movie universe?

Arthur

It’s too soon.

Kenedy M

Before they worry about next xmen movie. Worry about xmen apocalypse. The box office is a big juggle now. Releasing on the same day as a sequel to a billion dollar grossing movie, competition on 2nd week with another popular franchise sequel,teenage mutant ninja turtles,third week with finding dory. Now if civil war actually turns out to be good, who knows if it ended up competing with civil war on its third weekend.

well since no trailer does indeed have wolverine in it it’s fairly likelyhood next film will be dark phoenix.if they want to keep ending then future ending of DOFP+wolverine solo film will soon be ignored.

people are deluding themselves.fox isn’t sony.they aren’t in bad shape.

Fox with time travel In DOFP has already rebooted films essentialy the films.Inless fox throws enough money at hugh jackman to get him to rethink quiting wolverine his appearnace In Apocalypse and his and patrick stewart In wolverine will be end of original cast.

people really think fox like sony would tell Lauren Shueller Donnor,Bryan Singer,and Simon Kinberg bye and give complete control of X-Men over to Kevin Feige.

That would mean the FC trilogy and deadpool cast would be given the walking papers.

and people are forgetting inhumans have replaced mutants In MCU.Tone of X-Men doesn’t fit MCU at all.If people really think disney/marvel would have released a r rated deadpool film withg raphic violence,sex refences,taking potshots at genre and tony stark like deadpool did to wolverine they are delsional.